19 Stars
by Pseudonym P
Summary: "I don't remember anything before this," she whispered through shaky breaths, "I don't know who I was, I don't know what I did — all I know is that my name is Sam. That's it. That's all I know." / AU. DS.
1. chapter one

_My first fanfic in nearly 20 months. __This chapter sucks because I haven't written fanfic in over a year, so it's going to take some getting used to._

_That aside, I own nothing. Except plot, maybe._

_Un-beta'd._

**x**

A sunny Monday morning brought the hallways of Amity Park's Casper High to be swarmed with students who were both eager to greet their friends due to not seeing them over the three-day weekend and groan about how it was too soon to begin the first week of school. Majority of the students' chatter leaned towards the latter.

The green lockers on the walls were lined with people, with the sounds of catching up and telling stories of weekend, both real and made-up, lockers closing, squeaky and non-squeaky footsteps mixed in the air. Two students in particular, hovered by their lockers.

"So, how did it go last night? With Ember and everything." Sixteen-year-old Danny Fenton gave his best friend Tucker, who was currently typing around on his PDA, a dry look at the question. African-American Tucker Foley has been Danny's best friend since forever, and he was the biggest computer geek that Danny has ever known.

"Honestly, it was pretty horrible. I discovered something new about Ember. Apparently, Skulker gave her some sort of beeper that tells him in whenever she's in some sort of trouble," said Danny, "And, of course, she beeps him when we were fighting. Skulker showed up in five seconds _flat _and he started shooting at me like a maniac." Tucker howled out in laughter.

"Are you serious? Man! That sucks!" Danny wasn't amused as he slammed his locker shut and walked off, Tucker following behind him, still laughing. "That _really_ sucks!"

"It really isn't that funny," Danny muttered as he glared at his best friend as they turned to the hallway on their right, "I nearly got slammed last night—Skulker upgraded his suit like you wouldn't believe," Danny paused to shudder, "Thank God it happened near my place and Jazz was there to help. Or else I would've been totally screwed."

"Still, dude, you gotta congratulate the couple," Tucker chuckled and pat his best friend on the back, "it _is_ kinda cute."

Danny grimaced. "Ember and Skulker, working together to kick my butt? No, not really."

Tucker grinned. "But the beeper thing?"

Danny shrugged, a half-smile on his face. "That one, I gotta admit, _is_ kinda cute," he paused, making a face, "You know, for a frenzied hunter and an equally-frenzied rock star wannabe."

**x**

"Mr. Fenton, I hope our discussion of _Beowulf _isn't boring you," a voice drawled, but Danny was too sleepy to care.

"_Psst_, Danny!" Tucker hissed, and Danny's blue eyes flew open when he felt a particularly painful kick to his shin.

"OW! Oh, uh—no, of course not, Mr. Lancer! I think that the, uh, epic poem _Beowulf _is an, um, very interesting piece of Anglo-Saxon literature." Danny smiled sheepishly at the plump balding man. Mr. Lancer raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm. Very well, then. Class, the probable date when _Beowulf_ was written was between the eighth and early eleventh century, when…" Mr. Lancer went on, and Danny gave a sigh of relief, smiling when Mr. Lancer turned to look back at him.

"How did you do that?" Tucker whispered, and Danny looked at him, but his eyes were focused to the front of the class.

"He wrote it on the board, Tuck."

Tucker blinked and scratched his head under his red beret. "Wow. I should learn how to pay attention like that." Danny smiled dryly.

**x**

Danny remembered nothing substantial from any of his morning classes, except that _Beowulf _was written during the Anglo-Saxon period. He sat next to Tucker at their usual table while the lunch announcements reverberated throughout the lunch room, the volume of the speakers overpowering the buzz of the students.

"_Good morning, Casper High!" _a slightly static voice blared from the speakers,_ "This is Jazz Fenton, your student council president, to make some announcements. First off, since the second floor biology lab was burned down last week due to a very unfortunate accident, the biology department has moved its laboratory sessions to the chemistry lab on the third floor. Revisions to schedules have been made to accommodate…"_

"Oh, yeah, I just remembered," Tucker started, wiping the mustard off of the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and licking it off ("Dude, really, get some tissue," Danny grimaced), "How's Jazz taking the news?" Danny shrugged.

"_...and don't forget, support the Casper High Crows at the pep rally on Wednesday at the football field! And that's it for today's announcements. Enjoy the rest of your day!"_

"You mean the news of me being a half ghost? She's taking it pretty well. Says it 'explains a lot.'" Danny bit into his sandwich and stared at the sea of people in the cafeteria, recalling the Accident. "Whatever that means. You know, I'm kind of glad that your extremely nerdy side convinced me to step into that portal. I helped out a lot of people since I got my ghost powers."

Tucker gave a wry smile. "I was more freaked out than happy. I mean, you were practically convulsing right in front of me and I didn't know what to do. I'm lucky you're alive, man."

Two years ago, Danny's parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, inventors and owners of FentonWorks, invented something called the Ghost Portal, a doorway to the Ghost Zone. At first, it didn't work, much to the dismay of the couple, but, thanks to Danny, convinced by Tucker to go into the portal because "who knew what kind of amazing, super epic things existed on the other side of that portal", who pushed a button inside a portal that allowed it to work.

However, the problem was that, since Danny was inside during the time, the activation of the portal affected him, giving him ghost powers and another identity, Danny Phantom. The only people who knew were Danny, Tucker, Jazz and the ghosts Danny had to face every now and then.

Ever since then, Danny Phantom has been protecting the city from attacks from ghosts who escape from the Ghost Zone and make it to the human world.

Well, it's _supposed _to be Danny Phantom. But the rest of the city knows him as Invis-o-Bill.

"With all these ghost attacks happening, I'm lucky I'm _still_ alive."

The chatter of students filled the gaps between conversations as they ate their lunch. The boys finished their lunch and stood to put away their trays when milk started dripping from the bangs of Danny's black hair and down the back of his neck, making the entire cafeteria laugh.

"Got milk, Fen-turd?" Danny groaned and turned to meet a laughing jock who held a carton of milk over Danny's head. Dash Baxter, the blond-haired, blue-eyed football quarterback with a closet full of letter jackets was the (mostly self-dubbed) King of Casper High. He was a senior that basically had nothing better to do other than wail on people and flirt with girls.

The booming laughed caused other students to look at them and for the laughs to multiply by the second.

Danny stepped aside to dump his tray in the trash, and moved to get away from the jock. He was yanked backwards by the collar of his shirt.

"Let him go, Dash!" Tucker cried out.

"What're you gonna do, _geek_?" Dash sneered, "Program me to death?" He let out a roar of laughter along with the rest of the students when Tucker turned bright red.

The bell ringing was the signal of the end of Danny's humiliation, which Dash didn't look too happy about. He dropped Danny unceremoniously on the floor, and glared at the boy. "You're lucky this time," Dash ground out, "but remember this, Fen-tonium, I'm gonna wail on ya one o' these days." He promptly dropped Danny on the floor of the cafeteria and turned to leave. Danny sighed in relief when he saw the other students disperse along with Dash, heading for their classrooms.

Tucker got down next to Danny. "Dude, are you okay?"

"Yeah," Danny stood up, "I'm fine. Really, it's not as if Dash could do any _real _damage. Come on, I have to get this stuff off of me before class."

**x**

After phasing through the milk in his hair and clothes in the washroom, Danny walked to his last three classes of the day. They all went by in a blur—which was mostly what every day at school felt like—and before he knew it, he was walking home with Tucker.

"You up for a little _Doomed_ later tonight?" Tucker suggested, fiddling with his PDA for the nth time. "I found some new cheats that can totally help us through level 10!"

Danny shook his head. "Nah, I think I'll pass. I gotta go do some security rounds in the Ghost Zone before something goes out of hand again." Tucker shrugged.

"All right, suit yourself. See you tomorrow!" They waved to each other and said their goodbyes and Tucker turned left, whereas Danny turned right and hid behind a dumpster in an alley.

"Going ghost," Danny muttered to himself, transforming into a white-haired, green-eyed, half-ghost hybrid and taking off for home.

**x**

The sight of a large house with a metal extension and a giant sign that read _FentonWorks_ greeted Danny's eyes when he soared through the skies of Amity Park, silently landing next to a dumpster in an alley of the neighboring block, walking the rest of the way. FentonWorks was notoriously known for making the loudest noises when its ghost alarms went off, and Danny didn't want that to happen again. Once was enough for one neighborhood.

Danny climbed the stairs, twisted the knob and pushed their front door open. "I'm home," he called out, dumping his backpack on the couch.

"I'm in the kitchen, sweetie!" Danny set foot in the kitchen, walking to kiss his mother's cheek. His mother, Maddie Fenton, dressed in her blue jumpsuit and red goggles, held a screwdriver in her hands and was tinkering with a device that made Danny squirm silently.

"Hi, Mom, what're you working on?" Danny asked more out of courtesy rather than actual curiosity. Who knows what that invention would do to him…

"Oh, I'm just fixing your father's cell phone, sweetheart," she responded kindly, "He sat on it again. I'm gonna have to sew his back pockets shut if he wants this thing to live any longer." Danny inwardly gave a sigh of relief, walking to the fridge to get a soda.

"Speaking of Dad, where is he?" Danny popped open the lid and gulped the cola down.

"Danny, my boy!" a booming voice yelled, and a giant man in an orange hazmat suit appeared through the doorway on the other end of the kitchen. Danny grinned.

"Hey, dad." Danny tossed the empty soda can into the trash and walked out of the kitchen. "I'll be in my room!"

"All right, son!" Jack Fenton, Danny's father, called out, "Just yell out 'ghost!' at the top of your lungs if you need help!" Danny picked up his backpack off of the couch and rolled his eyes, a smile on his face.

**x**

"Skulker's Island? Check." Danny winced as he pulled a dart out of his butt. He stopped, floating amidst the green space and purple doors. "Well, guess I'm done for the day. All right, time for some _Doomed_ with—huh?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw a while figure move in the distance. He turned his head towards it—and he saw one of the Ghost Zone's common floating islands, but this one had a figure on it.

"Who is _that_?" Danny asked himself, flying towards the rock. "Hey!" He called out, and stopped just a few feet from the island, careful to leave space just in case the ghost was dangerous. "Are you okay, uh—" he squinted, "—miss? I've never seen you around before. Do you need help?"

The girl before him looked absolutely murderous. Her skin was deathly pale, her dark hair slightly mussed and her pale purple eyes glaring daggers towards him. She was wearing a hospital nightgown—it looked like a nightgown he's seen before, but he wondered what hospital it could be—and her feet were bare.

"I'm fine," she spat venomously, "You can leave now." Danny frowned.

"Geez, would it kill you to be nice, even just the slightest bit? I was only trying to help." The frown never left his face, and her glare never let up.

"Well, you're not doing anything _remotely _useful, so leaving would be a better alternative." Danny folded his arms across his chest, fed up of her attitude, and glared back.

"Fine," he answered her, turned around and took off. He didn't get very far before he heard a scream—from the opposite direction. He groaned. "Seriously?" He turned around to see Skulker hovering over the—snarky, rude and malevolent yet still—helpless girl and rushed over to save her.

"You'll make a good addition to my collection, child," Skulker purred, and the girl just glared.

"Go away!" she yelled, holding up her hand and flipping him off. Danny almost laughed at the sight—Skulker looked absolutely offended.

"Why, you little—" One of Skulker's guns protruded from his back and shot at the island, making the girl scream again.

"Hey, leave her alone!" Danny yelled, shooting a bright green beam from his hands. Skulker turned to the direction of the voice and was blasted back. Danny smirked and flew down to push the girl out of harm's way, but the weirdest thing happened.

_Did that blast just shoot right through her?_

"Well, if it isn't my prey. Now I'll have two new additions to my collection!" Danny rolled his eyes and flew towards the metal ghost, slamming into him and bringing him to one of the infinite doors in the Zone. With a firm grip on Skulker, he opened the fridge door and threw him into a particularly snowy place human world.

"Give me a break, Skulker," Danny deadpanned, shooting Skulker with a beam of ectoplasm. The metal ghost flipped backward into the snow. Skulker's face came up, and he spit snow out of his mouth, looking absolutely livid.

"Why, you—" Danny slammed the door in his face before the hunter could continue, sending a beam to burn off the handle.

"Now that that's done," Danny dusted his hands off and looked down at the girl who was sitting down, her knees to her chest. _I should probably leave her alone_…

He started flying off but the guilt was too much for him to bear. He groaned to himself. "Aw, man." He huffed and turned around, flying back and landed on the island. _Here it goes._

"Hey," he started carefully. The girl was silent, just staring off into space. Danny cleared his throat. "Hey," he said again, slowly making his way towards her, "Are you—uh, are you sure you're… okay?"

Her voice was so small that he could barely tell it apart from the silence that enveloped them. "No," she murmured sadly, "I'm not okay. I don't even know where I am." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. Her silence unnerved him.

"This is the, um, Ghost Zone," he said slowly. So far, every single ghost he's encountered already knew they were dead and why they were here. He never met a newcomer, so to speak. He paused. "Do you know why you're here?" The girl shook her head, her hair moving fluidly with the movement of her head.

"No, not a clue." Danny was stuck. What do you tell someone who doesn't know they're dead?

"Oh, um. Okay." Minutes filled with silence passed, before Danny spoke up. "Do you, uh, want me to help you?"

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with such sadness and home that it made Danny's heart both drop in panic and swell with anxiety. "Will you?"

Danny tried his best to smile. "Of course." The girl stood up and walked over to him, extending a hand.

"Then I'm sorry for how I acted towards you earlier," she said, a small smile on her face, "It was really rude of me." Danny smiled back, shaking her hand.

"It's cool. I'm D—Phantom, by the way." The girl raised an eyebrow but decided not to comment.

"Hi, Phantom. I'm Sam. It's nice to meet you."

**x**

_Wow, this turned out to be really boring. I apologize. I already have the outline and I know that the whole story will be better than this._

_Originally 10 chapters, but I—somehow—turned the first to chapters into one chapter, so it's either going to be nine chapters, or I'm going to have to do something about this._

_Read and review,_

_P_


	2. chapter two

_You guys have no idea how much I'm struggling with the wording. It feels like I'm reduced to talking like a fourth-grader; my vocabulary is really horrible and, honestly, really inadequate for writing. But then, it could be the writing style._

_Again, my apologies._

_Oh, and if anyone's wondering, the title of this fic is a song by Meg and Dia. The lyrics have nothing major to do with the fic, it was just what I was listening to when I was making the outline._

_Un-beta'd._

**x**

The next day found Danny and Tucker to be sitting in their usual booth at the Nasty Burger. They've been there for more than an hour; Danny finished his food—all two Mighty Meaty Cheesy Melts and three packs of large fries—already while Tucker was typing away on his laptop, a French fry sticking out the corner of his mouth.

"You done yet, Tucker?" drawled Danny as he played with the straw of his drink. Tucker nodded, pulling in the fry with his teeth and chewing it in concentration.

"Aaaaand… done!" The African-American pressed a button and the laptop in front of him made a delightful _ding!_, making him smile. "Your ghost files are all updated and I even put in that Skulker-Ember beeper thing in the notes. Man, I'm good!" Tucker congratulated himself, and Danny sent him a grin.

"Thanks, Tuck, I owe—" Danny was cut off by an explosion and a lot of screaming.

"_I AM THE BOX GHOST!" _yelled a plump blue ghost in overalls and a beanie, _"FEAR AND TREMBLE BEFORE MY INCREDIBLE POWERS OF ALL THINGS SQUARE AND CARBOARD!"_ He started flying around, making both employees and customers of the Nasty Burger flee for the exits.

You can't really blame them; it's not as if they knew better.

Danny's eye twitched in annoyance and Tucker sighed, passing his best friend the Fenton Thermos. "Here you go, dude." Danny gave a groan of frustration as he grabbed the thermos and ducked under the booth's table.

"Going ghost!" Danny cried out, zooming past tables and people, close to the floor, before punching the Box Ghost from below.

"_OW!"_ the Box Ghost screamed, grabbing his behind, "Who _dares_ challenge the wrath of the Box Ghost?" He turned, and came face to face with an irritated Danny Phantom. "Uh oh."

Danny raised an eyebrow as the blue ghost looked from left to right. "What are _you _doing here, Box Ghost? Aren't you supposed to be annoying somebody else, somewhere else?"

The Box Ghost raised his arms up, _"BEWARE!"_ and fled, making Danny's fingers twitch.

"Hey!" Danny yelled, infuriated, chasing after him, "Come back here!"

**x**

A good two hours of chasing the Box Ghost around the city, Danny had him cornered in an alley in the rich part of town. Danny sent the ghost a scowl and raised an eyebrow. "So, are you going to go in quietly or are you going to _make_ me make you go in quietly?"

The Box Ghost raised his arms up once again. "I am the Box Ghost!" He pointed to the thermos with disdain. "I am master of all things four-sided and three-dimensional! You cannot contain me in a cylindrical containment device!"

Danny's eye twitched for the nth time that day. "You asked for it!" He uncapped the thermos in his hand and sucked in the Box Ghost, capping it and giving a sigh of relief.

"I wasted two hours of my day on what?" He huffed, landing on the ground. "Trying to capture the joke of the Ghost Zone!"

"_Hey, I heard that!"_ Danny glared at the thermos.

"Oh, yeah? Then I hope you feel this!" Danny started shaking the thermos with all his might, feeling oddly satisfied of the barfing sounds coming from the contraption.

"Ghost Boy? Is that you?" Danny spun around to meet the giant, curious eyes of Paulina, the prettiest girl at Casper High.

"_Oh…_" moaned the Box Ghost, _"everything's spinning…"_

"Oh, uh, hi, um, Paulina," he paused, "It _is_ Paulina, right?" The dark-haired Latina clapped her hands in joy.

"Oh, yes, you remember me!" She fluttered her eyelashes.

Danny laughed nervously, "Uh, yeah." She gave him a dreamy smile and half-closed her eyes.

"So, what brings you to this part of town?" she cooed, slowly making her way towards him, and before he knew it, Paulina was hanging off of his arm.

_Oh my gosh, Paulina's touching me! I'm never washing this arm again!_

"Oh, I just, uh—" Danny cleared his throat, "I had to get rid of a nuisance ghost in the area." Paula looked absolutely delighted.

"Oh, how heroic!" Danny grinned. "So, are you doing anything now?" Danny's smile vanished and he blinked.

"I, uh, not really—" Paulina jumped in glee.

"Yay, let's go watch a movie!"

**x**

"_You watched a movie with Paulina?" _Tucker said incredulously and Danny sighed in dismay, pressing the phone to the side of his head.

"No, Danny _Phantom _watched a movie with Paulina—well, almost, anyway," he muttered.

"_What do you mean, 'almost'?"_

"I left before it even started." Tucker gave a gasp of indignation.

"_What? Why?"_ Danny rolled his eyes.

"I still have to shove the Box Ghost into the Ghost Zone, you know."

"_Oh. Well, suit yourself. Speaking of the Box Ghost, where is he?" _Tucker asked, making Danny's eyes roll. He eyed the thermos sitting at his bedside table, which was filled to the brim with incompetent ecto-energy.

"Taken care of. I don't even understand why the guy keeps coming back from the Ghost Zone. He's just being really annoying." Danny sighed, and Tucker chuckled.

"_Maybe he likes you."_

"Shut up, Foley." Tucker chuckled even more.

"_Okay, okay. So, are you finally ready for some _Doomed_ tonight?" _Danny winced.

"Uh, sorry, Tuck. I really can't."

"_What? Come on, Danny!"_

"Sorry, man, but I got some stuff to take care of in the Ghost Zone." Danny heard his best friend sigh on the other end of the call.

"_Seriously, Danny, what has that Ghost Zone been making you do and you can't even play a little Doomed with your best friend?"_ Tucker whined over the phone. Danny sighed.

"I'm sorry, Tuck, it's just that… something weird's going on." A knock sounded on Danny's door and he lifted his head off of the pillows. "Oh, gotta go, Tuck, someone's knocking."

"_Yeah, whatever. I'll be online if you need me."_

"Even if I don't need you, you'll still be online."

"_Dude, shut up. Later."_

"See ya, Tuck." Danny flipped his phone shut and got off the bed, crossing his room to get to the door. He opened it to be met with his sister's smiling face.

"Hi, Danny," Jazz chirped, "I'm gonna need a favor." She stepped into his room without permission, making Danny scowl.

"Jazz, for the last time, I am not flying over to check if the pants are on sale at—" Jazz shook her head.

"No, not that," she said, "here." The older Fenton handed Danny a thick pile of papers that were clipped together. "I need you to go over the year book design and tell me if it's any good."

"You're in the yearbook committee?" The younger Fenton asked disbelievingly.

"Yep. I'm heading it." Jazz gave him a wink.

Danny blinked and rolled his eyes. Typical Jazz. "Yeah, whatever, Jazz." He idly flipped through the pages. "I'll give it to you with notes next week." Jazz smiled.

"Thanks, little brother," she cooed, patting him on the head before walking out the door, making Danny glare at her retreating form. "I owe you!" Rolling his eyes, Danny slammed the door shut and threw the papers haphazardly on his desk, letting himself fall as soon as his knees hit the edge of his bed.

**x**

After throwing the Box Ghost back into the Ghost Zone (but not without a few good shakes), Danny found himself flying around the Zone, in the direction of the floating rock where the girl, Sam, was perched on. True enough, he found her there, sitting idly.

Danny hadn't told Tucker about the whole thing. He decided it would be for the best, since Danny himself didn't know what was going on. Heck, he didn't even know what Sam _was_. Sure, she was in the Ghost Zone, but that attack that Skulker shot at her yesterday went through her, just how humans phase through things in the Ghost Zone.

Danny's brow furrowed in confusion, but he shook his head and smiled as he landed on the rock. Sam looked up at him and smiled. "Hi, Sam."

"Phantom," she greeted, smiling slightly. Danny really didn't expect the awkward silence that returned every chance it got and seemed to arrange permanent settlement since it followed beating Skulker yesterday.

Not knowing what else to do, Danny walked over to Sam's side and sat down. She gave him a look and Danny looked away, rubbing the back of his head. "So, um," Danny started awkwardly, making Sam chuckle.

"That's one way to start an awkward conversation," she said, making Danny blush in embarrassment.

"Sorry," Danny paused, "What… and I hope I'm not being rude, but you said yesterday that you didn't know where you were." Sam nodded, looking sadder than he'd expected. "What did you mean by that?"

"What else could it mean?" Sam glared at him pointedly. "I don't know where I am, or how I got here. I woke up one day and ended up in this place. I don't even know what I'm doing here."

"I think I can answer that last part," Danny piped up, cringing slightly at the fact that he had to tell her that she was, well, dead, "See, in the Ghost Zone—"

"Are you trying to tell me that I'm dead, Phantom?" Sam deadpanned, "Because I think you are. And you're not going a very good job at it." He flinched under her stare.

"Uh. Yeah. Sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude or anything—" Sam sighed, hugging her knees to her chest.

"I don't even remember dying," she muttered, staring off into the green-and-purple distance. Danny stared off with her, absently gazing at the swirls in his surroundings. After a minute or two of silence, Sam looks at Danny out of the corner of her eye. "Hey, Phantom?"

"Yeah?" Danny turned his head to look at her.

"Do you remember dying?"

Danny nearly choked on his spit at her question. "Huh—oh, I, uh—" _Dying? I don't think stepping into your parents' Ghost Portal, accidentally turning it on from the inside, being hit with the brunt of the activation power and stepping out alive, albeit with ghost powers counts as dying. _"I—I don't remember, either." Danny looked away, but he heard Sam's sigh of relief mixed with dismay.

"I guess it's normal then," she mutters, "But you've been around right?" He nods. "What's it like, where you're from?" Danny gave a sardonic grin.

"Honestly? It isn't that fun," he started, "but some people are cool. Most people, though, they really suck." Sam laughed softly to herself until it looked like she was about to cry. She bit her trembling lip, eyes glazing over with unshed tears. She rubbed at her eyes, making the tears smear at her eyelids and the top parts of her cheeks.

"I don't remember anything before this," she whispered through shaky breaths, "I don't know who I was, I don't know what I used to do—all I know is that my name is Sam. That's it. That's all I know." The raven-haired girl buried her head into her folded arms, taking deep breaths.

Danny sent her a solemn look. "You'll be okay, Sam."

She didn't respond.

Danny took her appearance in. Her deathly pallor, dark hair and hospital gown—a pale blue cloth the loosely covered her from her shoulders to her knees, with a dark blue ribbon tying it around her slim form. From what he could see, the front part of the gown had a dark blue logo on it, and the letters _APGH. _His brow furrowed in concern.

_Who _are_ you, Sam?_

**x**

Three days and more than fifty Google searches later, Danny was completely blank in his efforts to search for where Sam came from. He sighed, letting his head drop to the cold surface of the lunch table.

How was he going to help her if he didn't know a thing about her?

"_Good morning, Casper High! It's me again, Jazz Fenton, with your routine announcements. First of all, congratulations to Nathan Lester! Nathanwon this year's Wallace World Photography Award, with the theme 'depth.'" _Cheers hollered from all over the room. _"You can view the photo on the school website, or in the awards hall in front of the principal's office. In other news…"_

"Danny. Hey, Danny. Dude. Danny? Danny!"

"Oh!" Danny blinked when a hand waved in front of his face. Shaking his head, he said, "Sorry, Tuck. Spaced out there for a little while. You were saying?"

"_Furthermore, the Casper High community would like to extend its deepest sympathies to the…" _the speakers resounded as Tucker swallowed some of the food he just shovelled into his mouth.

"Yeah. _Chaos_—you know, that totally wicked player on Doomed?" Danny nodded. "Yeah, him—he just up and vanished! As in, he's _gone, _not to be found on any level on _Doomed._" The halfa raised an eyebrow.

"Where is he?" Tucker shook his head.

"No idea. I don't know how or why, but when you got a score like Chaos' hanging like a golden trophy on the main page leader boards, you're not just leaving for no reason."

"What's his score?"

"Last time I checked, a little over sixteen billion by the time he reached level eight."

"_Sixteen bill—_" Danny gasped incredulously, "Are you serious? I can't even reach _half_ that score at level 10!"

"I know!" Tucker agreed furiously, "The guy's a total beast, and then he just leaves for no reason? Impossible."

"Maybe his mom grounded him or something." Tucker cringed.

"Wow, that's painful." Danny nodded in sympathy, taking another bite of his sandwich.

"…_and that's it for today's lunch announcements! Thank you and enjoy your day, Casper High!"_

**x**

The skies of Amity Park glowed purple as the sun moved to give way to the moon, darkening the surroundings to show the twinkling of the stars and allowing the shine of residence lights.

Danny's room, however, stayed dark. The teen lay on his bed with one arm under his head, barely registering the arrival of nightfall. His blue eyes were trained on the ceiling, but didn't see it, as his mind was elsewhere.

"_I don't remember anything before this."_ Her voice played in his head like a broken record_. "I don't know who I was, I don't know what I used to do—all I know is that my name is Sam. That's it. That's all I know."_

He huffed out a sigh and got up, figuring that around doing nothing won't accomplish anything. In the darkness of his room, he whispered, "Going ghost," and two rings formed around his middle, spreading outward to transform blue eyes to green and black hair to white. Danny Phantom took off, hoping that flying around could clear his head before his mom would call him down to dinner.

**x**

_I owe Nathan Lester to TV Tropes. I went with what they said._

_I was _this_ close to submitting this chapter without reaching my 2500-word quota, but I'm glad I didn't. _

_Also, anonymous review reply time!_

_**MsFrizzle: **__Thank you so much for your review! It means a lot to know that I'm not doing too slow and bad a job at laying down the setting._

_And guys, seriously? Over a hundred hits and only four people bothered to review? Criminal._

_Read and please review,_

_P_


	3. chapter three

_I think I'm getting better at this descriptive writing thing. Well, I hope I'm getting better._

_Sorry for the prolonged wait. Writing 2,500 words isn't a walk in the park, and school isn't making it any easier._

_Un-beta'd._

**x**

When Tucker incurred a detention at the end of their Friday afternoon classes because he was trying to sneak into the girls' locker room (which he insisted he had to do alone because Danny wouldn't turn him invisible and intangible), Danny ran behind Caper High and turned into his alter ego, soaring like a bullet towards his house's basement.

It was beyond Danny why Tucker had to get past "that earthly gateway" (the door, Danny couldn't tell) and "into the mystery room that was laden with beauty and peace—one would call it heaven" (which Danny thought to be the actual locker room—he found it weird that Tucker was being poetic about the girls locker room. Then again, this _is_ Tucker).

He heard a beep and felt a vibration coming from his pocket. He pulled out his phone and flipped the screen open, pressing the OPEN button to read the message.

**TUCKER FOLEY: **U SUCK SO MUCH

Danny sighed and typed in a reply.

**DANNY FENTON: **HEY THIS IS UR FAULT, MAN. TOLD U NOT 2 GO IN THE GIRLS LOCKER ROOM BUT NOOOOO LET'S NOT LISTEN 2 DANNY. SO DON'T BLAME ME 4 THIS, MR. "ROOM LADEN WITH BEAUTY AND PEACE"

In less than thirty seconds after he pressed the SEND button, his phone beeped and vibrated again.

**TUCKER FOLEY: **U'RE A TRAITOR, DANNY FENTON! A TRAITOR!

The lack of beeps that came after made Danny assume that Lancer found Tucker texting and decided to confiscate the piece of technology from the techno-geek—which probably made Tucker "stand his ground" (Tucker's words) but left him weeping on the inside. The halfa merely sighed and put his phone in his bag so it wouldn't disturb him as he flew through the skies of Amity Park.

It's been a bit more than a week since he last stepped foot—er, floated ectoplasm… or something along those lines—in the Ghost Zone. School had been eating him alive for the past few days (his school work was an even bigger killer than Skulker—it felt like his brains were being chewed out) and he barely had any time to make his supposed security rounds.

He landed on the alley a block away from his house and transformed back to Danny Fenton, running as fast as he could to FentonWorks.

"Mom! Dad!" Danny yelled, running up the stairs, and before anyone could respond, "I'm home and I have a lot of homework so don't disturb me under any circumstances!" He slammed the door shut behind him, barely registering the mumbled greetings from downstairs. He threw his backpack on his bed and turned back into Danny Phantom, turning himself intangible to sink through the floors and to the basement.

Danny gave a sigh of relief when he realized that his parents weren't in the huge lab. "Alright," he told himself, walking towards the open portal, "time to do some rounds in the—"

"_GHOST!_" he heard, and Danny groaned.

"Aw, crud." He turned around to face his father, who had just run down the stairs, out of breath and leaning his hands on his knees. Danny waited a few minutes for his father to regain the strength to yell threateningly at his ghost half, patiently looking around the lab as he did so. _Hey, is that a mouse hole? _

_Wait, we have mice?_

Soon enough, Jack regained his breath. "Freeze!" he yelled, pulling out the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick (which was really just a bat with Jack's face stuck to the side and the word 'Fenton' in front of it) from behind him, got poised and ready to swing with all his might. Danny sighed.

"Oh no, the amazing and awesome Fenton ghost hunters," Danny drawled in a bored manner, "Whatever shall I do. I should just surrender now and send myself back into the Ghost Zone."

This seemed to appease Jack, as well as to momentarily distract him. "Hey, he called me awesome!"

Danny rolled his eyes and pressed his thumb to the fingerprint scanner on the Fenton Ghost Portal control panel, and zipped through the black-and-yellow-striped doors into the green vortex that was the entrance to the Ghost Zone.

**x**

"_Come back here, whelp!"_ Danny yelped a 'yikes!' as he hurriedly dodged a flurry of lasers and ectoblasts directed at him from the creepy island with a giant skull on it.

"Sorry, Skulker," Danny called back, "I'm keeping a schedule!" He swiftly spun around and firing an ectoblast of his own at the island, snickering at the explosion. "There," said Danny with satisfaction practically dripping from every word, "_that's_ gonna keep him busy for a little while." Danny glided lower, getting father from Skulker's island. "Now to look for—_Sam?_"

Danny stopped in midair and stared at the empty island where Sam used to sit. "Oh _no,_" Danny muttered, flying towards the island. "Sam! _Sam!_ Sam, _where are you?_"

Danny decided that panicking would do nothing. He landed on the floating rock, looking around. "She couldn't have gotten far," he murmured to himself, eyes landing on smaller floating rocks—_steps_, he realized—and gave a sigh and smile of relief.

He followed the makeshift steps on foot.

**x**

Danny found her sitting on a rock identical to the one they came from, only larger. Sam seemed to notice him there, and she looked up to give him a smile.

"Hi, Phantom." Danny gave a small wave and walked over to her, sitting down on the spot next to her.

"So," he began, "do you remember anything yet?" Sam's smile shrunk and she sadly shook her head, her eyes watching her fingers trace unspecific patterns on the dusty ground.

"Nothing," Sam spoke, her voice soft and cheerless, "If I have any memories—any memories at all—they aren't showing up." She stopped. "Speaking of not showing up, where have you been?" Danny gave an apologetic grin and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, "I was, uh, busy. Very—um, very, _very_ busy." Sam scoffed, her purple eyes rolling.

"Right. Busy." Danny raised an eyebrow, putting his arm down.

"Why suddenly so curious?" he teased, and Sam crossed her arms.

"Ha, don't make me laugh, Phantom. Mere curiosity, is all." Danny grinned.

"Sure, Sam." Sam slapped his arm, making Danny jump and rub the spot. "Hey!" He laughed and she laughed with him, but their moment of fun was cut off by a beep. "Oh, oops! That's me," Danny apologized, pulling out his phone. Sam raised her eyebrow and read what was on the screen of the phone:

**TUCKER FOLEY: **LANCER JUST LET ME OUT, THANK GOD. PLS TELL ME U'RE UP 4 SOME DOOMED, I'M DYING OF LONELINESS

Danny sighed and typed in a reply.

**DANNY FENTON: **TUCKER, GET A LIFE

"Wow, really good cell service in here," Sam suddenly spoke up, eyes still trained on Danny's phone screen. Danny chuckled.

"Yeah, I kno—" He stopped, eyeing her. "You know what a cell phone is?" Sam leered at him.

"Of course I know what a cell phone is. Do I look like I died in the 1800s?" She raised an eyebrow, pointing at her hospital gown. "I don't think they made _these_ in the 1800s. And who's Danny Fenton?"

Danny's jaw dropped as he gaped for a good three seconds before he shut his mouth and coughed, looking at the ground. "It's an, um, screen name."

Sam scoffed, clearly not believing it. "Yeah, sure. I bet everyone on _Doomed_ is trembling in fear the moment they read _'Danny Fenton is online_.'" She laughed at her own joke, apparently please with herself, but unaware that Danny was staring at her, wide-eyed.

"What did you just say?" he sputtered, and Sam rolled her eyes.

"I said that Danny Fenton is such a wussy name."

"No, no—about that part about _Doomed._"

"Oh, the one where people will tremble in fear—" Danny cut her off, suddenly serious.

"_How do you know that?_" Sam's brow furrowed.

"How do I know _what?_" she shot back, and suddenly Danny was on his feet, pacing like no tomorrow. "Uh, Phantom?"

"How would you know about _Doomed?_" he spoke aloud, and Sam wasn't sure if the ghost was talking to her or to himself. She pretty much assumed that he was going crazy. "_Doomed _was created in August of 2004 by Hutch Bartman and his team at Noedolekcin, Inc. The game features advanced graphics for peripheral vision and zoom-in, state-of-the-art gaming technology and is a pioneer of the RoboDestructo game generation."

"Noedolekcin? Is that German or something? And did you really just say _RoboDestructo_?" At the sound of Sam's remark, he turned to face her, completely serious.

"How do you know about _Doomed_, Sam?" Danny demanded, not noticing his rising voice volume and the irritated look that consumed her face the closer he stepped towards her. "You said you don't remember anything! Were you _lying _to me?"

Sam looked absolutely livid. "How dare you," she ground out, her purple eyes darkening. "How dare you accuse me of such a thing!"

Danny crossed his arms and looked down at her sitting form. "Then how do you explain this?"

Sam shot up in her fury. "I don't remember _anything_, Phantom! _Anything! _Why don't you believe me?"

"Then how do you know—"

"_I don't know!_" Sam yelled at the top of her lungs, her eyes glassy with tears unshed, and Danny felt his heart pull and drop at the guilt. Her eyes looked absolutely murderous. "_How dare you accuse me of lying to you! _Did it even occur to you that maybe, just freaking _maybe_, that I had _no idea_? That I am just _as confused_ as _you_?"

Danny stared at her, the remorse showing on his face and he started to apologize.

"Sam, I'm sorry, I just—"

"Shove it, ghost. Leave me alone." Sam continued to glare at him and walked to shove her shoulder against his, but she just passed through him.

Even if it didn't work, Danny got the message.

"Sam—" he tried again, turning around, but she was quite far away, and he decided that maybe it was best to leave her alone. For now.

**x**

"Danny, are you okay?" Jazz asked Danny at the dinner table, and the younger Fenton shot her a half-hearted smile before going back to playing with his food.

"Yeah, Jazz, I just…" he sighed, putting down his fork. "I feel bad for something that I did." Jazz gave him an understanding smile.

"It's called guilt, and not talking about it will only make it worse. You know you can tell me anything, Danny."

"I know," Danny sighed, "It's just… well… there's this girl and—" Jazz looked absolutely delighted at the mention of the opposite sex.

"A _girl_?" she teased, her eyebrow going up, and Danny glared at her and furiously shook his head.

"It's not like that, Jazz," Danny snapped, "_She's from the Ghost Zone_," he whisper-hissed, and Jazz's face fell.

"Oh. Oh. Wow, that was… disappointing." Danny huffed.

"Yeah, well. Anyway, I kind of hurt her feelings and I don't know how to apologize. I gave her some time to cool off, though." Jazz gave her brother a smile.

"Just say 'sorry,' Danny. It isn't that hard." Danny sighed and stared at his lap, head hung low.

"You should've seen the look on her face, Jazz. She looked like she never wanted to speak to me again." She placed a hand on Danny's shoulder.

"Still try, Danny," she said when he looked up to face her. "You never know." She gave him a reassuring smile.

Danny smiled back.

**x**

Making extra care to avoid Skulker's island (he didn't want to face Skulker _and_ an angry teenage girl within a span of an hour), Danny silently floated through the realm of the Ghost Zone to get to the island where he last saw Sam. Smiling slightly, he approached her, but stopped abruptly when she turned to face him, her expression as if she was willing a spear through his skull. His smile disappeared.

"What do you want?" she spat venomously, and Danny flinched. "Did you come to accuse me of lying _again_?"

Danny stared at the ground. "Sorry, Sam." She scoffed.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah. I don't." Danny lifted his head and stared into Sam's lilac irises, gaze serious. "I don't understand what I'm talking about, and I'm sorry. I don't know how hard it is to not know absolutely anything about who you were before your death. If I did, I don't remember—it was too long ago. And I'm sorry for being a jerk. I had no right to accuse you of things such as lying to me."

Sam bit her lip, but made no move otherwise.

They just stared at each other, both standing on a rock in the middle of green swirls and purple doors. Danny was the first to crack.

He gave a small half-smile and spread his arms open. "Friends?" Sam's eyes blurred with tears unshed. She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him, giving him a hug.

"I don't have a choice, Phantom," she said through thick, shaky breaths, "you're the only one I've got."

**x**

The steady beeping, to them, was louder than any other sound in the hospital's third floor hallway at three in the afternoon.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

"How is she?" a redheaded woman asked a nurse in her scrubs, her blue eyes teary. The nurse gave the woman an understanding smile as she looked over a clipboard with some papers on it.

"Her vitals are okay, but the brain activity is the same." The nurse sighed. "Get some rest, ma'm. We'll look over her while you're gone."

"We're fine," a blond-haired man responded, putting a hand on his wife's shoulder. His blue eyes had dark circles under them, staring through the glass walls and right at his daughter.

She looked deathly pale, an IV sticking out of her arm and a tube that gave her oxygen through her nose. Her black hair was splayed all over the pillow she was lying down on.

The nurse gave a sympathetic smile before placing the clipboard back in its container near the door. "I understand, Mr. Manson." She turned to give the couple some time alone, but before she left, she said, "Comas don't last forever, you know. She still has a chance of living." Jeremy stiffly nodded and the nurse walked away.

"Oh, Jeremy," the woman said, her voice breaking, obviously on the verge of crying. "I've never been so scared for anything in my entire life." The man pulled his wife to his chest and she started crying, her tears wetting the front of his grey sweater vest. He rubbed her back affectionately. "Maybe," she sobbed, "M-Maybe if-f I w-wasn't so ha-harsh, s-she'd s-still b-be—"

Jeremy Manson hushed her, "Stop thinking that way, Pam. It was an accident. It wasn't your fault."

No matter how much her husband told her otherwise, Pam Manson couldn't help but think that it was. Her puffy eyes strayed to the clipboard on the wall.

_AMITY PARK GENERAL HOSPITAL_

_88 North Drive, Amity Park_

_Patient: Manson, Samantha Baudelaire_

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

**x**

_WHOO, that took a while. I've been quite busy with school work and extra curriculars that I barely had any time to write._

_By the way, thank you for all your wonderful reviews! I'm not sure if I replied to every single one, but I try. They all basically say the same thing, anyway…_

_Anonymous review replies!_

_**Jess: **__I think this chapter pretty much answers your question, yes? _

_**PhantomGurl12344: **__Thank you for the review and I'm glad you're enjoying the story!_

_**Isis SunCloud: **__Almost, but not quite!_

_Also, just a sidenote: I always imagined Sam to be half-French. Not sure why, but I've always had that feeling. And I looked up 'Baudelaire,' and Google came up with a French poet that, in my head, Sam is related to, so everything is perfect and nothing hurts._

_Read and review,_

_P_


	4. chapter four

_Um. Sorry it took so long?_

_Un-beta'd._

**x**

"Danny? Are you okay?" Danny blinked and shook his head.

"Yeah, sorry." Tucker gave him a worried look.

"You've been spacing out a lot more than usual. Is everything okay?" Danny paused. All he'd been thinking about lately was Sam. How'd she get into the Ghost Zone? When Skulker shot her, why did the beam go right through her? How'd she know about _Doomed_? Where did she come from? When did she get to the Ghost Zone? Why was she dressed in a hospital gown? How come she—

"Danny. Danny, you're doing it again." Danny groaned and lightly slapped his cheek.

"Sorry, Tuck. It's just—" Tucker looked at his best friend expectantly.

"Just…?" Danny sighed as they turned a corner. They were walking home from school and he knew that if he was going to tell Tucker something, it better be quick. They were almost at his place.

"Just—I don't know," Danny muttered, hand moving to his cheek to rub at his neck, "Things have been… stressful lately." Tucker snorted ungracefully.

"You're not stressing about school, I'm sure," he commented, and Danny was torn between glaring at him and punching him in the face. Sensing the murderous aura that emanated from Danny, Tucker almost immediately snapped into Best Friend Mode. "So, what's on your mind?"

"It's—but first, swear, you're not going to make fun of me for this." Tucker scowled.

"But why?! Where's the fun in—" Danny was stern.

"_Tucker_." Tucker groaned.

"Okay, okay. Fine. Now, what's eating you?" Danny's eyes landed on his front porch of his house and sighed.

"You know, it looks like this'll take a while. Why don't you hang in my room for a sec?"

**x**

"So, that's all you know? Her name is Sam?" Danny managed to relay the entire story about the mysterious girl he met in the Ghost Zone, except for the hug. Danny thought his best friend didn't need to know that yet.

In fact, no one needed to know that yet. Danny himself was still coming to terms with it.

Or maybe he was just thinking too much.

"Yeah." Danny blinked. "Wait, there's one more thing."

Tucker looked at Danny keenly. "What?"

Danny put his hand on his chin, his elbow rested on the mattress as he lied on his belly. Tucker was preoccupying himself by spinning around on Danny's computer chair.

"She was wearing this hospital gown…"

"Hospital gown?" Tucker stopped. "Color?"

"It was blue… sort of pale. I'm pretty sure I've seen it before, but I'm just not sure where." Tucker booted up Danny's computer and typed in something and some images appeared. The African-American shook his head and prepared his fingers over the keys to type more things.

"This is too much to work with. Did the gown have anything on it?"

"Letters." Tucker gave a blank stare.

"Anything _specific_?" Danny gave a sheepish smile.

"Sorry. An acronym, I think. I don't remember though. I'm guessing it's some kind of hospital."

"Well, duh." Danny glared.

"_Tucker_."

"What?" Tucker defended, throwing his hands in the air, "It's a hospital gown! It's bound to have something embroidered on it."

"You have a point." Danny paused. "But the problem is where it came from. I'm sure if we—"

"We? No, man. _You're _going to find out what that hospital gown says, and what hospital it came from—and I'll research everything from behind my trusty laptop screen." Danny stared.

"But—" Tucker raised a hand in front of him.

"No buts, Danny. Hospitals and Tucker Foley don't mix. Never did, never will."

"Really? Not even if—"

"Nope, not even if _Amity Park's Next Top Model_ runs the whole place and all of the nurses are hot. Besides, this is _your_ girlfriend." Danny sputtered.

"She's not my girlfriend!" Tucker raised his eyebrow.

"Sure, I'll pretend I believe you. Still won't change the fact that I'm not setting foot in any hospital."

**x**

Danny's mind was a blur of thoughts _It was an A. A something. I'm sure it started with an A. Now, what were the next three letters?_

"Still thinking about that Sam girl?" Danny jumped as the techno-geek that set his dead mini-farm lunch tray on their table. "Wow. How many cups of coffee did you drink?"

Danny sighed. "None. Technus decided to pay me a visit and he brought the—" he used air quotes, "—Greatest Threat to the Known World."

Tucker bit into his Extra Meaty Supremely Meaty Meatball Sub. "Whesh esh?" (_Which is_?)

"A flat iron." Tucker choked between laughing and his food following the rule of gravity and falling down his throat.

"_Whaf_?"

"Not kidding. Anyway, I chased him all the way to the park, and I ended up in the lake, and, well…" Tucker chewed a bit more and swallowed.

"How'd he find an outlet?"

"He didn't," Danny deadpanned, "he brought a generator."

"Oh. Ouch. Guess that explains the jumpiness."

"Pretty much." Danny looked down at the notebook on the table. There were a lot of scribbles of letters in fours, and Danny looked hard at them, before gathering his face in his hands in frustration. "Ugh! I don't remember what her hospital gown said."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up over it, man," Tucker comforted. Danny _tsk_ed and raked his fingers through his black hair.

"I know, I just…" Danny sighed. "I could help her, Tuck. I _know_ I can help her." Tucker stared at his best friend, and Danny shifted. "What?"

"Nothing," Tucker said, "It's just that… you look like you really like this girl."

"I—_what_?" Danny said incredulously, "What gave you that idea?"

"…Nothing. Forget I said anything." Tucker continued to stare, and Danny decided to change the subject. Tucker took another bite of his sub.

"I told Jazz about Sam." After Tucker swallowed, he said,

"Really? I thought she'd be the last one to know." Danny looked confused.

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, seeing as now that her brother's interested in the opposite sex…" Danny glared and shot a small ectobeam at Tucker's sandwich, and the thing made a small explosion and a mess on Tucker's face.

"What was that?" When Tucker didn't respond, Danny grinned. "Yeah, didn't think so."

x

"Guess what I found out today," Tucker said as a way of greeting as he approached Danny on the way out of school, carrying a folder.

"Let me guess. You finally figured out that they kept all of the meat in the basement?"

"No. I—wait, it's all in the _basement_?" Danny chuckled.

"Focus, Tuck." Tucker shook his head.

"Right. Anyway, here." Tucker handed over the folder to Danny. "Remember a few days ago, when Jazz was making announcements over the PA system? Well, she made an announcement about a student here, at Casper, who got involved in some kind of car accident."

Danny opened the folder and took out a newspaper clipping. There was a black and white photo printed of a car crash under the headline _Innocent Bystander in the Way of Rogue Vehicle_. Danny's blue eyes skimmed over the article. "And?"

"The girl involved? She's in our grade. She's really smart, too, apparently—in the top fifteen percent of our class. Her name's Samantha Manson."

"Samantha? As in Sam?"

"Probably. I mean, I think so."

"When was this?"

"The crash happened three weeks ago, some place uptown. Some kids were high on drugs and they ended up driving into the side of this building that was being constructed. Some debris fell from impact, and I think Manson wasn't wearing a hard hat when it happened."

"How is she now?" Danny inquired.

"She's currently in a coma, from what I've read about her."

Danny's lips formed a small smile. "This is worth looking into." He placed the folder tenderly under his arm and patted his friend on the back. "Thanks, Tuck!"

Tucker shrugged, a smirk on his face. "I try."

Danny ran to the nearest alley and transformed behind a dumpster, rising into the air and bolting for home.

**x**

"Manson… Manson…"

"Danny?" Danny looked up from his spot on his bedroom floor, the contents of the folder Tucker gave him scattered around him. A rather thick pile of papers was untidily placed on his lap, his fingers flipping through the pages, eyes focused.

Jazz's head poked in through his door left ajar. "Hey, Danny. You okay in here?" She observed his workspace and gave a small smile. "Hey, you're finally getting to work on that yearbook thing I asked you to do."

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Danny answered, motioning for Jazz to enter his room. "I mean, no, not really. Sorry. Listen, the girl from the Ghost Zone—"

"You mean Sam?" Jazz inquired. Danny nodded.

"Yeah. I think she's from Casper." Jazz's brow furrowed.

"As in… a student?"

"Uh huh. Tucker told me about this girl in our class who got involved in a car accident three weeks ago—" Jazz blinked.

"You mean Samantha…" her voice trailed off and her eyes widened in realization. She ran to his side and grabbed the papers from his hands, ignoring his indignant _Hey!_. She flipped to a page and pointed to a photo. "Is this her?"

Danny blinked slowly and took the pile from his sister's hands, staring at the photo intently.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's her. That's Sam."

**x**

"You mean you _don't_ listen to the school announcements?"

"Jazz, for the last _frickin'_ time, that isn't the point!"

"But it's an equally valid point!" Jazz retorted as she rummaged through the fridge, pulling out a pitcher of orange juice.

"And it is totally useless in the situation we are dealing with right now," Danny forced, and Jazz huffed. He sighed. "Where are mom and dad?"

"Patrol." They both sighed in dismay. "I hope they don't embarrass us too much this time."

"I sincerely hope so," Danny agreed. "Anyway, where did you say she was right now?"

"She's confined at Amity Park General Hospital."

"Isn't North Mercy located uptown? Why wasn't she brought there?"

"North Mercy's been experiencing some financial instability lately. The Mansons decided that Amity Park General Hospital was the better choice." Danny nodded as Jazz set down a glass of orange juice next to him on the kitchen table and pulled a chair for herself, sipping from her own glass.

"Amity Park General Hospital." Danny blinked. "APGH."

"Danny, are you okay?" Danny shook his head.

"Yeah. APGH was what it said on Sam's hospital gown."

"Then it—she really _is_ Sam Manson."

"Yeah," Danny murmured, staring at the black-and-white photo that rested on the table. The photo was of a girl with chin-length hair, half a ponytail on her head with the name _Manson, Samantha_ under it. "It really is."

**x**

"_Found her yet_?" Danny sighed as the static-y voice of his best friend filtered through the small hearing device in his ears, otherwise known as the Fenton Phones. They were built to filter out ghost noise, but all Tucker and Danny use them for are no-hand walkie talkies.

"Nope. Still pretty far away from Skulker's island, Tuck. Relax."

"_Sorry, man, but I really just want to see the face of the woman that captured your heart_—"

"I _will_ hang up on you, Foley."

"_Shutting up now._" A moment passed. "_Okay, so I'm gathering what I know about her—looks like she's been in Casper since fourth grade._"

"Are you on her Facebook page?"

"_Of course. Where else would I be_?" Danny rolled his eyes.

"Okay. What else?"

"_She's part of—oh, ew. This is disgusting_." Danny's interest peaked.

"What? She's part of what?"

"_The _Ultrarecyclo-vegetarians Humane Society_. She's a vegetarian_!"

"People have been known to not eat meat, Tucker."

"_Yeah, but how do they even manage to do it?! I mean, _no meat?! _Why would you subject yourself to such torture_?!"

"Tucker, just because you can devour an entire barn of animals in a couple of days doesn't mean everyone has to." Danny's eyes spotted a familiar skull-shaped island and veered left towards the equally familiar islands. "Oops, gotta go, Tuck. Almost there."

"_Alright, man. Holler if you need anything_."

"Phantom out."

"_Foley out_." Danny plucked off the communicators and pocketed them as he flew forward.

**x**

"Phantom!" Danny grinned, waving at the girl who found a small rock to sit on.

"Hey, Sam! How're you?" Sam gave a wry smile and moved over. She patted the space next to her and motioned for him to sit.

"Bored, as always." Danny sat next to her. "You?"

"Well, I decided to be productive in my spare time," he said, earning a light shove from a grinning Sam.

"Oh, wow, that was low, Phantom. That was low." He chortled.

"Anyway, I found out something that might help you remember who you are." She lit up at the mention of it.

"Really?" she said enthusiastically, "Like what?" Danny moved to sit facing her.

"Do you remember a certain place called Casper High School?" Sam snorted.

"That dump? Please. I'd rather not." Danny laughed when Sam grinned. "Hey, I remember things!"

"And Lancer?"

"What a sad man. There was a rumor that went around that his hair grew on his back instead of his head." Danny laughed out loud.

"Really? Man, that's rich." Danny wiped a tear of laughter from his eye as Sam kept talking.

"And the food. Ugh, the food was so bad. I always had to bring my own lunch. Everything they served had meat. Meat!" Danny smiled.

"You're a vegan?"

She puffed her chest out. "I'm an ultrarecyclo-vegetarian, thank you very much."

"A _what_?" Danny blinked in confusion.

"An ultrarecyclo-vegetarian. I don't eat anything that has a face on it." Danny blinked in even _more_ confusion.

"What's the difference?" Sam sighed, as if she was exhausted from having to repeat this explanation at least fifteen times a day. _That's good_, he thought, _At least she's starting to remember things more._

"Vegans don't drink milk from cows. I do."

Danny nodded. "Remember anything else? Anyone else?" Sam paused and her face turned sour. "What?"

"_Paulina_," she spat, and Danny felt offended. He kind of liked the Latina.

"What? What's wrong with Paulina?"

"She's such a shallow witch. I don't understand how anyone can like her."

Danny squirmed. "Well, I'm sure she's not that bad."

Sam gave him a pointed look. He never felt smaller.

They eventually started talking about other things in Amity Park—the Nasty Burger, the strip mall, the park, Axion Labs—and before Danny knew it, she could remember her own name.

"Sam Manson," she said, as if tasting something for the first time. "It feels…"

"Great?" Danny supplied, but Sam shook her head, all traces of a smile gone.

"Bitter." Danny looked at her in concern.

"I don't get it. How…?" Sam shrugged.

"I don't know either. It just feels… sad. I feel trapped whenever I hear it." She gave a humourless laugh. "It's a weird way to feel about a name, huh? Sorry."

Danny shook his head and put a hand on her shoulder. "No. It doesn't." Sam gave a half smile.

"Hey, Phantom."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." She grabs his hand in hers and Danny feels his cheeks color. "Thanks so much."

"N-No problem, Sam."

She said more things, but his smile started to fade as soon as her voice started to lose its volume. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn't hear a thing. "Sam?"

She stopped, mouthed a _What? _and cocked her head to the side. He rubbed his eyes.

She was becoming translucent.

"Sam!" She blinked and raised her arm and looked at her hand, which was slowly vanishing. "Sam! _Sam_!" Danny tried to grab any part of her that he could, but she was slipping through his fingers. He looked at her face and tears collected at her eyes.

_Phantom! Phantom!_ he could read her lips say, but he couldn't hear her, couldn't feel her. Soon enough, he couldn't see her.

"Sam…" He stared blankly into the swirling green and purple in the distance and reached into his pocket, turning on the Fenton Phones and plugging them into his ears.

"_Danny! How'd it go_?" Tucker's excited voice filtered through. "_Did she remember anything? Does she know her name? Did you ki_—"

"Tucker," Danny said, voice oddly empty, "Sam… she's…"

"_She's what? What happened, Danny_?"

"Sam's… gone. She's gone."

**x**

"What…?" Purple eyes blinked against the bright sun that shone through the white curtains of her room. But she didn't have white curtains.

"Sam! Sam, honey, thank goodness you're okay!" Her ears heard a distinct series of beeps in the background, as well as the rustling of someone moving closer.

"Mom…?" she croaked, voice raspy and her mother collected her into a hug, joined in by their father.

"We're so sorry, darling, we're so, _so_ sorry," her mother sobbed, and soon enough, Sam started crying, too. Her father squeezed her and her mother tighter, and she hand to fit her hand in to wipe at the tears from her eyes. She didn't get it.

The doctors filtered in and congratulated her for waking up—apparently she had been in a coma—and they had talked to her parents about her release from the hospital. One of them commented how happy she was to see a family whole again.

She didn't get it. Instead of feeling whole, she'd never felt more hollow in her entire life.

She forced the tears back by blinking them away.

**x**

_I hope that makes up for it! School has been eating me alive._

_Read and review,_

_P_


	5. chapter five

_Well, it's been quite a while. _

_I haven't lost this story, don't worry – I have an outline and everything. The main concern is whether or not I have time for it. So, without further ado…_

_Un-beta'd._

**x**

Friday. That was a Friday night.

It was at the corner of Abraham Avenue and Fifth Street. There was a party somewhere near—on Fifth Street, yeah; some guy from Casper High lived at that particular on Fifth Street—and some guys who were high decided that drag racing would be fun.

Sam was out for a walk. She'd been out for about ten minutes; she reached the building that never seemed to be finished being built. She was mad at her parents, so she took a walk to cool down, with her hands in the pocket of her dark hoodie. Then again, she was mad at them most of the time, so this wasn't new.

What was new was the hollering, the bright flash of headlights that slammed a good five feet in front of her. The yellow of the lamppost nearby flickered, her heart raced and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

_That was close_, she thought, heart racing. She turned on her heel, prepared to race for home, but several loud sounds overhead stopped her. She looked up.

A crash later, everything went black.

**x**

White hair.

_"Geez, would it kill you to be nice, even the slightest bit? I was only trying to help."_

Green eyes.

_"Do you remember dying?"_

A kind smile.

_"N-No problem, Sam."_

She felt panic. She—everything was turning black, and she was losing his face—she couldn't _see_—

Sam woke up in cold sweat, breathing heavily. The clock on her bedside table read _4:08 am_.

She groaned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Phantom," she muttered to herself, staring at her hands on her lap. "Who _are_ you?"

**x**

"Danny—Danny, hello?" Danny raised his head, which was nestled on the arms folded in his desk, and turned to Tucker.

"What?"

Tucker gave him a sympathetic smile. "Man, I get—it sucks. I get it. But, hey, relax and—she's probably okay. She's better off not being hunted down by Skulker." Danny groaned and leaned back, sinking into his seat.

The chatter in the room drowned out their conversation.

"It's not—I just—" Danny tried, but he just groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. "I can't explain it." His voice was muffled by his hands. "Am I being a dork about this?"

"Uh, yeah. Kinda." Another groan. "Dude, listen—as your best friend, I am telling you to get over this. There's nothing you can do—"

"There was, Tuck, there _was_," muttered Danny, hands finally leaving his face to fidget on his desk. "That's the problem."

Tucker opened his mouth but promptly shut it when a girl walked into their room. He nearly choked on his own spit.

Danny heard the struggle and gave his friend a strange look. "Tuck, are you okay?" In the middle of coughing and trying to breathe, Tuck's eyes darted over to a spot behind Danny. "Dude, seriously, you need the nurse? I can—" Tucker kicked him in the shin. "OW, what the—"

"Settle down, class," said Mr. Lancer as he walked in, setting his papers on the desk. "Now, in—uh, Mr. Foley, do you need the Heimlich maneuver?"

Tucker sunk into his seat, face beet red, as the class snickered.

"No? All right, then," Lancer continued, "In the next week, I'll be requiring you to read on Dante Alighieri's _Inferno_, specifically the seven circles of hell. This'll be a pair paper, so I expect everyone to get at least a somewhat… decent mark." He looks pointedly at Danny., who scowled in response. "Any questions? Yes, Mr. Baxter."

"Yeah," Dash started, "Do we get to pick our partners?"

"No, Mr. Baxter, I have robbed you of that privilege by choosing your partners beforehand. Any other questions?" When he was met with silence, Lancer smiled. "Good. Papers are due on Monday. Now, let's get to the partnerships—"

Danny tuned out Lancer's voice until—

"Fenton and Manson," Lancer said, and Danny sat up. _Manson? _

"Foley and Sanchez…" Lancer went on, but Danny's attention was long gone. Looking around the room, he finally spotted her. She was pale, he noticed, but her eyes were still bright and strong. She was thin, thinner than he remembered her being when she was in the Ghost Zone. She's…

"Here," Danny breathed, mostly to himself. "Sam's here."

**x**

Lancer left them to talk about their papers.

"Uh, hi," Danny started, "I'm Danny."

"Sam," she replied monotonously. An awkward silence hung in the air, the chatter of their classmates a quiet hum in the background. "Look, I can do the paper, just—"

"What?" Danny's brow furrowed. "No! No. I'm—I can do the paper. We can do the paper. I'm—we—look, uh, I'm not a bad person." Danny wanted to slap himself. _What the hell, Fenton? You're 'not a bad person'?_

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Uh, okay. Thanks for the info."

"No, wait—sorry—I just—" Danny sighed. "It's been a rough weekend."

"Tell me about it," Sam muttered under her breath. Danny winced.

"Oh, yeah, you were—" His mouth closed when she glared at him.

"Look, _Fenton_. We're not friends," Sam basically spat, "Stop trying to act like it."

Danny frowned. "Look, I'm trying to be—I _want_ to be your friend. You must've had a rough couple of weeks—"

"'Rough'? Try murderous," she sneered. "If you're expecting me to be some sort of Paulina Sanchez-type of girl then you can forget this project. I'll do it on my own." The bell rang and she was out the door before Danny could say anything else.

"Dude," Tucker said as came up to him, "I got paired up with Paulina—_Paulina_, and I—hey, Danny. Are you okay?" Danny kept staring at the door where Sam left. "Danny?"

"Huh?"

"Are you okay, man?" Danny blinked and looked at his best friend.

"Y—uh, yeah. Sorry."

"You got landed with Sam, right? She's the chick from—"

"Yeah. She's…. well." Danny shook his head. "Whatever. Come on, I'm starved."

**x**

"She forgot?"

Danny shook his head. "More like she doesn't remember a thing."

"She doesn't remember anything?" Tucker asked Danny incredulously, taking a bite out of his lunch sandwich. "I mean, nothing at all?" Danny shook his head.

"She looked like she wanted to bite my head off. I don't—man. This is nuts." Danny let his head fall to the wooden table. They decided to sit outside today, mostly because Tucker wanted to see his new partner practice in her cheering uniform. Partially because Danny didn't see Sam inside the cafeteria when they were getting lunch.

Danny didn't—oh, man. It sucked. Like, it sucked that Sam didn't remember him. He actually—they actually bonded, in the weirdest sense of the word. And now—

"Why are you looking at me like that," Danny asked Tucker, who was looking at him with a weird smile.

"You're totally into her," Tucker declared confidently. "My best friend is in love."

"I am _not_ in love," Danny shot back. "I'm just… concerned."

"Still doesn't change the fact that you're totally into her," Tucker retaliated.

Danny had nothing to say about that one.

"Hey, Danny—" Tucker pointed to something and Danny turned around, just in time to see Paulina shove something into Sam's chest. He instinctively got up, eyes glowing green. "Danny," Tucker forced, grabbing his best friend's wrist, "_don't_."

"You don't scare me, Paulina," Sam said frostily.

"You should be," Paulina hissed, "The Ghost Boy is _mine_, goth weirdo. No amount of doodles all over your silly sketchbook is going to change that."

Sam simply dusted off her shirt. "That's cute, Paulina. Tell me, where's Phantom now?"

_Phantom_, Danny thought, _She remembers._

"I thought you said she didn't—" Tucker began, but Danny shushed him.

Paulina scoffed. "Who cares where he is? It still doesn't change the fact that he. Is. _Mine_."

"If it's a fact that he's _yours_," Sam mocked, "then shouldn't he be with you? Shouldn't everyone know? Unless, of course, he's, you know, _not_." Paulina looked like she was ready to decapitate Sam with her manicure.

"You little—"

"So unless you can prove that, I can draw who I want, when I want. You want to know why Paulina? Because _fuck you_, that's why." Sam shot her one last glare. "And let me repeat: You don't scare me." She turned on her heel and swiftly walked back into the school.

"Man," Tucker breathed, "That was scary. Cool—but scary."

Danny just stared in the direction Sam left.

**x**

_Sorry for the short chapter, but it's really supposed to be short!_

_This story has roughly three more chapters to go, but it's tentative. If I don't do any outline-tweaking, it'll stay at three, but knowing me…_

_Ah, well. Read and review?_

_P_


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